Letter: Doctors and dying

Sir: You claim that the jury acquitted Dr Moor because they thought that he "did right" (leading article, 12 May). That can only be speculation. Juries cannot give reasons for their verdict.

One factor that might have weighed heavily is the compulsory life sentence for murder. The injustice of a punishment which treats the mercy killer and the serial killer the same is plain for all to see,and as a matter of justice as well as of common sense the compulsory life sentence should go.

Yet, for political reasons successive governments have declined to act, and it is unlikely that the present one, ever anxious to appease the populist press, will differ.